A Matter of Opinion

A letter in response to Barry Blitt’s article (March 12, 2012)

Barry Blitt’s illustration ridiculing Rick Santorum for becoming nauseated upon hearing President Kennedy remark that the separation of church and state should be absolute overlooks judicial history (“What Makes Ricky Retch?” March 12th). Both Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart and Chief Justice William Rehnquist asserted that the separation of church and state is not absolute, an opinion closer to Santorum’s than to Kennedy’s. Potter said, “We err in the first place if we do not recognize, as a matter of history and a matter of the imperatives of our free society, that religion and government must necessarily interact in countless ways.” And Rehnquist observed that “ ‘the wall of separation between church and state’ is a metaphor based upon bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned.” Santorum’s choice of words was unfortunate, but his understanding of the First Amendment was not. There is a huge difference between freedom of religious speech and “an establishment of religion.”

Ronald L. Trowbridge

Former chief of staff to Chief Justice of the United States Warren E. Burger

Conroe, Texas

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